"Be not wroth, master!" answered the lad; "but truth is truth, nevertheless, whether it be sour or sweet, or whether it tweak the nose of high or low, says Pater Gregor, and we Danes are a free folk who dare to speak out in council[14], whether it be against great or small; that you know as well as I, master. The king, by my troth, is not the man to put mercy before justice where the outlaws or their kindred and friends are concerned. Now, there, are Marsk Stig's pretty daughters; he has pent them up in the maiden's tower at Vordingborg, only because their father was an outlawed man; that's not very merciful. Then there's the bishop they have so long plagued and tortured; that's a bad business, says Pater Gregor. Whether or not he was leagued with the outlaws or the Slesvig Duke no one knows or can prove; but, however that may be, he was a mighty man of God, whom none but the Lord and the pope could condemn, says Pater Gregor." "Ay, indeed! He talks too much, that Pater Gregor," muttered the old man, seating himself thoughtfully on his fish basket. "Those pious sirs of the cloister may say what they will; but this I know, that a more just-dealing king we have never had in Denmark. As to his stringing up that fellow----" "It was a good deed, master, that I will never deny," interrupted the lad. "If the steward did not exactly help the bishop on his road,--which, no doubt, was what he was hung for,--he still richly deserved the halter for many other things. The king did him no wrong; but that poor turnkey Mads, and his nephew, I am sorry for them. They are pent up, under bolt and bar, at Flynderborg, only because the ale was a little too strong for them that night-watch in the tower. He who helped the bishop but," he added, with a rather sinister roll of the eye, "was surely none other than that gallows bird, Morten the cook. It was both boldly and piously done, says Pater Gregor, and therefore doubtless hath holy St. Martin saved his life, and helped him out of the country; but he is an outlawed man not the less for that, and if the Devil hath not an eye on his soul I am no honest Dane."